With discourse still growing around Sony’s plans to completely abandon physical media in 2028 Famitsu asked SEGA president and COO, Shuji Utsumi, about his thoughts on physical video game software. Mr. Utsumi told the publication that the company still very much values physical media and are working on their strategy going forward to complement both physical and digital video game software. Here’s what Mr. Utsumi had to say via machine translation.
Sega is also active in the distribution of game software, so I imagine you have a strong focus on physical packaging.
Utsumi: We were originally a platform provider, and of course, we still value our physical culture. Rather than completely abandoning that, we are currently challenging ourselves to shift towards being able to think about and act on the important aspects of digital in parallel.
let’s go sega is not ditching physical media
Yay
That’s good news to hear from sega, now all they have to do is to have F&@&ING UPGRADE PACKS! I wasted so much money rebuying poyo poyo Tetris 2s because it didn’t have an upgrade pack.
SEGA needs to get back into the hardware game to champion physical media since Sony and Microsoft are wild cards.
They need to do squat.
It’s that why Sonic x Shadow Generations is on a G A M E – K E Y C A R D ?
So bye bye PlayStation?
Now this is wonderful news to hear. I love this. The only thing left is the upgraded packs that they have to fixed.
Hollow words. They use Game Key Cards on Switch 2 when they can afford full cartridges. They don’t care as much as they want you to believe they do.
so performative
every sega game on S2 is digital only
Not to defend them because they are 95% key card but sonic racing is on a cart and they are releasing demon slayer 2 on a cart at least in Asia.
Not all, but only 1 or 2 (I know that racing game at least) released on proper physical but that’s about it so ya, Sega contradicted themselves here lol. Bunch of idiots.
Keycards tell a different story.
Every Sega Game on Switch 2 has been a Game-Key Card aka a Fake Physical Cartridge. It’s not a code in the box. It’s a Code on a piece of Plastic that requires internet and an entire game download from a server that will eventually cease to exist.
There is actually one game that sega published that isn’t a game key card, sonic racing cross worlds.
Sega buttering the biscuit but proof’s in the pudding. I guess with Sony’s silence it leaves other companies an opening to pretend to suddenly care about what people are talking about. But don’t eat it up!
The quote doesn’t seem as definitive as the article title suggests imo
But now I’m thinking how neat it would be if Sega released a new home console that proudly used physical discs.
Would’ve liked to have seen them do modest hardware like the evercade, get a licensing program on it for all the fan developers wanting to make Sega games. Get Sega back to the roots of simpler, lower cost game development that’s just fun again
What a load of bullshit, considering that Sega are one of the most egregious when it comes to Key Cards on Switch 2 and notoriously dont allow you to do upgrade paths from switch 1 to switch 2 this statement is completely contradictory to the practices they have already implemented
Almost all new sega games are key cards – that is not physical media. That is digital with extra hustle..
All download servers are still up from the wii, dsi, ps3, psp and x360 days even if the rest of the services are long gone. Hopefully it’ll stay that way. Game key card is a compromise, one you and I don’t like but at least it allows you to collect, resell and also gatekeep a game from your kids or someone. It’s still “physical” even though it’s also not physical. Lets not forget that a lot of games with zero day patches are basically unplayable if you don’t update them so having the actual game on a card/disk if what they pressed was crap is only a bit better.
If Sega comes out with a console I’ll buy it day one. Provided it uses physical media. Nintendo and Sega my two consoles would make me very happy!
Sony can make software for them.
Says the company releasing mostly on Game Key Cards on the Switch 2 lol. Sega just contradicted themselves with this.
And by physical, they mean Game-key Cards….